This is an important week in the world of missions because this is the week in which one of the largest and most significant churches in the Atlanta area holds their missions conference. It’s called the MOVE Conference. It used to be that many churches had a missions week or certainly a missions emphasis week. Not so much anymore. That makes those that are still around all the more important.

This is a time when people from many areas and many churches gather to interact with people serving overseas in hard places, to encourage them, pray for them, hear their story, have breakout sessions with lots of Q&A, etc. It’s a place where many young people can be inspired to consider serving in the cause of the gospel worldwide. Once again, my role at this conference is going to be to provide a keynote address. I’m going to be addressing a question I’ve been working on answering for thirty-five years. This question is how to develop an effective response to the moral crisis of abortion from our local neighborhood to the worst places in the world where abortion, gendercide and infanticide is most concentrated.

It’s a world missions question for me because I’ve discovered over the years that, like medical missions in the past, pregnancy crisis intervention is not just an entry point for saving the child or the innocent, but it’s also a tremendous way to help people begin to look to God as the Provider. It’s a great opportunity for us to help young couples get a vision for their life. That would include things like abstinence until marriage and faithfulness in marriage. In many cases, you can actually help young couples get married when a baby is on the way. The crisis of the pregnancy is sometimes what God uses in his sovereignty to help people come to know him, his forgiveness and his renewed life by the Holy Spirit that he gives to people.

I’ve always seen a connection, personally, to the rescue of the innocent and bringing good news to the guilty. They’ve always been to me like two wings of the airplane that they both work very well together and they don’t work together if you try to separate them. I’m excited to be able to bring a keynote address this week at this conference on the topic of the Moral Crisis of Abortion and World Missions.

I’m going to tell some stories and other things, but I’ve also written it out and I want to make it available to you again. I believe I may have done this last fall when I first started working on this, but now it’s been edited and it’s been printed out as a nice little booklet that you can download from our website at passionlife.org on the resource page. You’ll find it there. I think that you’ll find it to be a good 15-20 minute read. It will help you think through the data. It’ll help you understand the pro-life stance as a world missions challenge. And if your passion is more in world missions, it’ll help you begin to understand that the moral crisis of abortion really is an entry point.

There’s one phrase that I use in this book that I use often, it’s not original to me, but the phrase is “the mission field created by abortion.” That phrase was really introduced to me by Kurt Dillinger, who is the President of Life International. His point at that time is that unborn children back around 2000-2001 really were an unreached people group that needed our assistance. He began to really frame the cause of life in terms of world missions. It was interesting that some years later we ended up starting PassionLife to assist in what Life International is also doing and that is to try to promote the gospel of life in the neediest places in the world.

We consider Kurt and Life International partners. I’m grateful for him for introducing this idea that weds together the need to rescue the innocent, which we are commanded by scripture, along with that equally valuable commandment to bring good news to the guilty. I would really appreciate your prayers this week and next, as this message continues to go out and be spread among those who are gathering to think about world missions for them to think about pro-life work as an entry point.

I’d really encourage you again to go to our website and download this little booklet called The Moral Crisis of Abortion and World Missions. I think that you’ll really find it a compelling and interesting argument and not something that you’re going to hear generally either in the World Missions movement conversations. Even in the pro-life space where dialogue, debates, discussions and postings are always going on, they’re almost always focused on the United States rather than as a worldwide perspective.

Please pray for me. Download this booklet and let’s just continue to take advantage of every door that God gives to us to bring his good news into the world. For many people right now, they are in a moral crisis and don’t know what to do and don’t know where their provision is, and we know where that provision comes from. We are going to be there as good Samaritans to provide some life-saving help and do it in a life-changing way. For me, that’s a pretty exciting thing to give my time and effort to and I encourage you to join us. Thank you.